If you assume it does not come at the cost of slower overall economic growth (a very relevant caution when formulating economic policy), I'd argue that higher equality of income is unambiguously good.
There are more charts and analysis here. Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.
The sad thing is that the U.S.'s is higher than almost all developed nations :-(
ReplyDeleteThat's not entirely true - the U.S. is higher than some developing countries, but also substantially lower than a few major ones (Brazil, South Africa), as well as most of Latin America and a number of African countries (although for Africa the range is very wide).
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